Self-realization · 6 of 11
Life, death and what carries over
Life is a mind and a body in step with each other. Death is their parting. What is unfinished goes on.
On each page the marked passages are the words of Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrti, from the books. The lines between them are ours and only lead from one passage to the next.
Life is a parallelism
Body and mind each have a wave of their own. While the two waves run parallel, there is a living being.
Any object, mental or physical, always emanates waves. If these waves from the physical body and the mental body have a parallelism, then and then only is a cooperative unit structure maintained.
Association by proper adjustment and parallelism between the psychic and physical bodies causes life, and dissociation under adverse conditions results in death.
Death is a long sleep
In sleep the two outer layers of the mind rest and the causal mind keeps watch. In death it rests too.
Kárańamanasi diirghanidrá marańam. [Long sleep in the causal mind is death.]
When there occurs a vibrational disparity in the psycho-physical parallelism, the unconscious mind also becomes inactive. This state is called death.
What carries over
The reactions not yet lived through need a body in which they can be lived out. The mind goes where its own momentum takes it.
The dissociated mind, along with its reactive momenta, leaves the old body in search of a new one. In accordance with its samskaras, its reactive momenta, the mind searches for and finds an appropriate medium for expression. Let’s say an alcoholic and a sádhu go from Patna to Benares. The sádhu will join the company of other sádhus on some riverbank, while the alcoholic will locate some pub. So, in accordance with one’s saḿskáras, one gets an appropriate physical body.
Such a field may be available in a day, or it may even take millions of years to discover it, for the mind cannot take shelter in a body till a field which suits the requirements of potential reactions is obtained. Hence it is never possible to say where and when one is to be reborn after death.
No heaven, no hell
So there is no waiting-place, and no reward or punishment handed down from outside.
The mind cannot stand still, nor will it stay suspended in a graveyard until the Day of Judgement.
Paramátmá does not indulge in partiality. The truth of the matter is that everyone moves according to one’s karma.
According to our philosophy there is no hell or heaven.
Upward or downward
The direction is open both ways. A mind lifted by higher thought needs a finer body next; a mind made crude needs a cruder one.
The imbibing of waves of higher wavelengths can rarefy the psychic body of a lower animal or plant, so that it can have an association with the human physical structure, and vice versa, if the wavelength is made cruder by inculcating meaner thoughts.